Resolution

Sunday 3 January 2010

New Year’s Eve and Day came and went with barely a notice. Christmas was recognizable because of the holiday lights hanging inside b-huts, barracks, and in the hospital- the multi-colored kind we keep strung up all year in Hawaii. Christmas trees of different sizes were visible here and there, mostly small ones shipped from home with a handful of token ornaments, infinitely more poignant and profound in their sincerity and simplicity. New Year’s, however, was pretty much ignored. I spent the morning of New Year’s Day with the smell of my daughter’s hair, the squeeze of my son’s tight hug, the feeling of a tender kiss on New Year’s eve somewhere in the back of my mind. The rest of me spent the morning of New Year’s Day in OR #3, operating on a 13 year-old Afghan child that I had seen out in a village when I was on a medical outreach mission. He had a tumor working its way out through the skin of his face, so I did a parotidectomy and neck dissection to remove the tumor. It was nice to be doing head and neck surgery again, rather than trauma surgery or combat trauma research work. Mostly, I guess I was relieved by how much I enjoyed the case. I see it as proof that I will eventually be able to return home to my normal life, finding it fulfilling and well, normal. I’ve only been gone for five months, but it seems strange to imagine a world without the constant sound of helicopters, the smell of outdoor toiletry, the vista of haze and opacity that lurks and obscures.

The real heroes of that case were the guys who went back out to the village to find the child and bring him in. Their daily courage is awe-inspiring. Maybe even more than them, though, I admire the boy. He is a 13 year-old villager who showed up at the hospital to see me with no escort outside of a commando that he didn’t know. I can’t imagine what he must have been thinking and feeling as we walked to the CT scanner, not understanding the language of anyone around him, in an environment that must seem so utterly incomprehensible. Through an interpreter, I explained the scan and the upcoming surgery, and he neither blinked nor flinched. An impassive nod was his sign of assent. One of the commandos was able to track down an older brother who serves as his guardian and has stayed with him since the surgery.

I just checked on him this afternoon and he is doing fine. I have always enjoyed rounding on my patients alone. The patients tend to be more relaxed, I’m less rushed and distracted, and it allows for real communication, even when we don’t speak the same language. When I’m alone, I can sometimes hear my former patients that I carry around with me- the successes and the failures. They remind me of my strengths, my weaknesses. They sometimes scold, sometimes applaud, often remind me of things that I should have remembered but seem to have forgotten, and constantly point out that they will always be there, patiently waiting for me to be quiet and wise enough to listen.